Alexus McLeod is Professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian-American Studies at the University of Connecticut. He works primarily in Global and Comparative Philosophy, particularly early Chinese (Han and Pre-Han) and Mesoamerican Philosophy.

• Introduction: In the Shadows of the Chinese Tradition


• Chapter 1. Self, Mind and Body, Agency


• Chapter 2. What is Mental Illness? Contemporary and Ancient Views


• Chapter 3. Madness of Last Resort: Feigned Madness, Ambivalence, and Doubt


• Chapter 4. The Wilds, Untamed, and Spontaneity: Zhuangist Views of Madness


• Chapter 5. Synthesis and Medicalization in Early Han Views of Mental Illness


• Conclusion: Madness and Self-Cultivation: Ways Forward

In The Dao of Madness, Alexus McLeod discuss three different accounts of the concept of "madness" (kuang) in early Chinese thought, and the origins of the conception of mental illness in early China. Madness is discussed in early Chinese texts in connection with personhood, self-cultivation, and agency. The book explores the role of madness in Confucian texts, which take madness as the result of flawed character, and in the Zhuangzi and related texts, which celebrate madness as an alternative and unbounded view of the world. The attempt to solve some of the problems inherent in these earlier views of madness leads to the "medicalization" of madness and mental illness more generally in Han Dynasty texts, and the origin of the Chinese medical tradition. Understanding these crucial links between the medical tradition and the philosophical tradition in early China clarifies early views of personhood, agency, and self-cultivation.